Did you ever have the problem that while being on a company’s PC you couldn’t install the Flash player plugin for Firefox?

Well now there’s a solution to bypass this administrator lock!

Flash (under Firefox) doesn’t require an installation at all. Sure it comes with an executable, but the only thing it really does is copy two files to your Firefox install directory.

Here is how it goes:

You’ll need to copy these two files:
flashplayer.xpt, NPSWF32.dll

To this direc­tory:
Mozilla Firefox\plugins\

You can do this either by installing Flash on a sep­a­rate com­puter and copy­ing the files over, or by sim­ply extract­ing the nec­es­sary files from the Flash installer and copy­ing them directly. There are a few pro­grams capa­ble of doing this, but to make the process eas­ier I’ve wrapped them into an easy-​​to-​​use pro­gram that can extract files from sev­eral dif­fer­ent types of installer (and other archives). The name of the pro­gram is Uni­ver­sal Extrac­tor, and it can be down­loaded from here:
http://​www​.legroom​.net/​m​y​s​oft

This was kindly contributed by nitro322.

Cheers to him!

A 27-year-old man described as one of the world’s most prolific spammers was arrested Wednesday

SEATTLE (AP) – A 27-year-old man described as one of the world’s most prolific spammers was arrested Wednesday, and federal authorities said computer users across the Web could notice a decrease in the amount of junk e-mail.

Robert Alan Soloway is accused of using networks of compromised “zombie” computers to send out millions upon millions of spam e-mails.

“He’s one of the top 10 spammers in the world,” said Tim Cranton, a Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) lawyer who is senior director of the company’s Worldwide Internet Safety Programs. “He’s a huge problem for our customers. This is a very good day.”

A federal grand jury last week returned a 35-count indictment against Soloway charging him with mail fraud, wire fraud, e-mail fraud, aggravated identity theft and money laundering.

Soloway pleaded not guilty Wednesday afternoon to all charges after a judge determined that – even with four bank accounts seized by the government – he was sufficiently well off to pay for his own lawyer.

He has been living in a ritzy apartment and drives an expensive Mercedes convertible, said prosecutor Kathryn Warma. Prosecutors are seeking to have him forfeit $773,000 they say he made from his business, Newport Internet Marketing Corp.

A public defender who represented him for Wednesday’s hearing declined to comment.

Prosecutors say Soloway used computers infected with malicious code to send out millions of junk e-mails since 2003. The computers are called “zombies” because owners typically have no idea their machines have been infected.

He continued his activities even after Microsoft won a $7 million civil judgment against him in 2005 and the operator of a small Internet service provider in Oklahoma won a $10 million judgment, prosecutors said.

U.S. Attorney Jeff Sullivan said Wednesday that the case is the first in the country in which federal prosecutors have used identity theft statutes to prosecute a spammer for taking over someone else’s Internet domain name. Soloway could face decades in prison, though prosecutors said they have not calculated what guideline sentencing range he might face.

The investigation began when the authorities began receiving hundreds of complaints about Soloway, who had been featured on a list of known spammers kept by The Spamhaus Project, an international anti-spam organization.

The Santa Barbara County, Calif., Department of Social Services said it was spending $1,000 a week to fight the spam it was receiving, and other businesses and individuals complained of having their reputations damaged when it appeared spam was originating from their computers.

“This is not just a nuisance. This is way beyond a nuisance,” Warma said.

Soloway used the networks of compromised computers to send out unsolicited bulk e-mails urging people to use his Internet marketing company to advertise their products, authorities said.

People who clicked on a link in the e-mail were directed to his Web site. There, Soloway advertised his ability to send out as many as 20 million e-mail advertisements over 15 days for $495, the indictment said.

The Spamhaus Project rejoiced at his arrest.

“Soloway has been a long-term nuisance on the Internet – both in terms of the spam he sent, and the people he duped to use his spam service,” organizers wrote on Spamhaus.org.

Soloway remained in federal detention pending a hearing Monday.

» Source: apnews.myway.com

I’ve decided to close ProjectW down since I don’t have time to run it anymore. It was fun to do 3 years but now the time has come to shut it down. Big thanks to all posters, donators, VIPs and most of all mods and admins. Good luck in the future, GRIZZLY

ProjectW, possibly the biggest online warez board has today closed its doors. With over 400000 members and millions of posts, the board could count on a huge popularity. The recent update to phpBB 3.0 RC1 could have been the reason of Grizzly’s decision, because the Release Candidate worked slower as phpBB 2, and the search function (crucial to a board of this size) didn’t function perfectly, however a ProjectW moderator tells us this wasn’t the reason of ProjectW’s demise.

It’s quite unlikely that almost half a million users will just give up, therefor I expect to see petitions and new boards rising from the remains of ProjectW.

» Link: ProjectW.org

Update: Rumor has it that http://piratebot.org/ will release an archived version of ProjectW’s database in a couple of days.

Update: The biggest warez-board now pW.org closed is www.warez-bb.org
A lot of moderators and admins of the old pW.org board have also made a new board (with empty database) at www.warezws.com

Blizzard WWI in Seoul, South Korea – Blizzard has unveiled that the long-awaited video game it is developing goes by the name of “Starcraft 2“. That’s right. Starcraft 2 is coming! They sure took their sweet old time with saying anything exciting (an hour), as with any huge announcement. Of course it’s all about creating and extending the hype. It really goes without saying that no matter what game Blizzard announced, excitement would ensue. Details on the game will follow soon, but right now I just wanted to get this posted for everyone. Are you happy with Blizzard’s announcement? Leave your thoughts below.

» Video: >> Click here << (YouTube, Flash Required)
» View: Starcraft 2 | Press Release
» Screenshot: >> Click here << (Courtesy of IGN)

Free software is great, and corporate America loves it. It’s often high-quality stuff that can be downloaded free off the Internet and then copied at will. It’s versatile – it can be customized to perform almost any large-scale computing task – and it’s blessedly crash-resistant. A broad community of developers, from individuals to large companies like IBM, is constantly working to improve it and introduce new features. No wonder the business world has embraced it so enthusiastically: More than half the companies in the Fortune 500 are thought to be using the free operating system Linux in their data centers.

But now there’s a shadow hanging over Linux and other free software, and it’s being cast by Microsoft. The Redmond behemoth asserts that one reason free software is of such high quality is that it violates more than 200 of Microsoft’s patents. And as a mature company facing unfavorable market trends and fearsome competitors like Google (Charts, Fortune 500), Microsoft is pulling no punches: It wants royalties. If the company gets its way, free software won’t be free anymore. The conflict pits Microsoft and its dogged CEO, Steve Ballmer, against the “free world” – people who believe software is pure knowledge. The leader of that faction is Richard Matthew Stallman, a computer visionary with the look and the intransigence of an Old Testament prophet.

» View: Full Story
» News source: CNN

As an update to January’s post the latest issue of Games for Windows Magazine has revealed the elite subscription pricing behind Hellgate: London, which will be free to play online should you opt out of subscribing for additional features. These features, which will be available for $9.95 (depending on location) are as follows:

• Elite subscribers pay $9.95 a month
• 24/7 phone- and internet-support
• No (server) queues for elite subscribers, with preference over non-paying customers
• 3 chars per account for non-elites, 12 for elite-customers
• Elite subscribers can store up to 40 items (instead of 20 for non-subscribers), which can be accessed from any char in an account-wide item vault.
• Visible distinction from other players. Elite subscribers are recognisable from their equipment and may trade subscriber-only equipment to other elite subscribers.
• VIP-Shuttles to remote areas
• Housing and founding of guilds are enabled for subscribers. Elite subscribers may attain officer/leader priviledges within their guild.
• Elite subscribers have access to additional game modes, including Hardcore mode.
• Elite subscribers and non-subscribers can play with each other.
• Costs actually depend on where you live. Subscription fees in the Asian market will cost considerably less, in accordance to the market conditions and expectations of the players and local publishers within the region.

The subscription costs make it possible for Flagship Studios to produce additional content for Hellgate: London twice a month, or more. New content includes new items, monsters, areas, character classes and other content which are not present in the retail version of the game. It is not known as this time whether this additional content will only be available to paying subscribers.

» View: Original Story @ Hellgate Guru
» Link: Shacknews Coverage

In a massive 207-page report on the interactive entertainment industry for 2007, Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter notes that while “the main driver of console hardware sales is the quality and quantity of the underlying available content,” the high definition format war between HD DVD and Blu-ray could be a key factor in determining the console war outcome.

“Notwithstanding the efforts of the three console manufacturers to deliver compelling exclusive content, we expect the ultimate outcome of the console wars to be decided by the motion picture studios. Should the studios embrace Sony’s Blu-ray standard for high definition DVDs, we think Sony will gain an insurmountable advantage over Microsoft; should the studios embrace Sony rival Toshiba’s HD-DVD format, we think that Microsoft can maintain its first mover advantage and will dominate software sales for years to come,” Pachter explained.

“We expect the dominant console at the end of the next cycle to be the Sony PlayStation 3 (PS3), primarily due to our assessment that Sony will win the high definition DVD format war,” he said. “However, we expect Microsoft’s Xbox 360 to enjoy a first mover advantage for the next two years, capturing approximately 44% of U.S. and European combined next generation hardware unit sales by the end of 2007. We forecast the PS3 and Nintendo’s Wii to capture approximately 21% and 35%, respectively, of the next generation hardware market in this same period. We forecast the Wii to take the lead in 2008, with 39% market share, and expect the race to even out in 2009, with all three console makers capturing between 30 – 37% of the overall market.

“Ultimately, we see Sony ‘winning’ the console war with 36% of the market, with Nintendo ‘capturing’ second place at 34% and Microsoft finishing third at 30%. We believe that this is essentially a dead heat, and each manufacturer will have sufficient market share to generate significant profits. These estimates do not include market shares in Japan, which we expect to be dominated by Nintendo (51% through 2011) and Sony (44%).”

Looking at the overall health of the industry, Pachter is forecasting the combined U.S. and European software markets to grow at a 16.1 percent CAGR from 2007 to 2009. WMS estimates that the addressable market opportunity for U.S. software publishers is a whopping $17.7 billion in 2007.

» View: Full Story @ Gamedaily BIZ

New research results presented today could bring companies such as Intel much closer to that goal of offering notebooks that achieve a battery running time of 8 hours and more.

Researchers of the Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory claim to have developed an enhanced approach to building of rechargeable lithium-ion batteries.

Scheduled for an unveiling at the meeting of the Electrochemical Society today, the new technology is based on a “manganese-rich” nano-crystalline, layered-composite structure that is used as material for the positive electrode. According to an early announcement, the researchers are using a two-component “composite” structure: An active component for charge storage is embedded in an inactive component that stabilizes the structure.

US officials championing freedom and democracy are well aware that they cannot try to silence Islamist militants by censoring or blocking the growing number of Al-Qaeda related web sites.

Frank Cilluffo, director of the Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington University, said the Internet has created a “largely borderless world. Internet chat rooms are now supplementing and replacing mosques, community centers and coffee shops as venues for recruitment and radicalization by terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda.“
To fight that, Cilluffo noted that “it is possible that an intelligence officer posing as a sympathizer could infiltrate an online extremist community. Seeds of confusion, doubt and distrust could then be planted in order to chip away at the ties that bind individual extremists into a cohesive and dangerous group.“

Other tactics he proposed included “deepen(ing) our understanding of the process of radicalization.” Cilluffo also lamented the lack of Arabic-speakers in US intelligence services. “The ability to speak, understand and translate Arabic is crucial to prevention and response efforts, yet US government capacities in that regard are much weaker than they should be.”

Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Felter, director of the Combating Terrorism Center at the United States military academy at West Point, concurred that attempts to close down the sites have proven futile. “An open society in the information age offers opportunities for asymmetric warfare that cannot be taken away, only countered. Know your enemy — read what the terrorists are telling us online. We can monitor them … follow the networks and assess their operational capacity. We can sabotage them by infiltrating their networks and flooding the web with bogus information. And we can anticipate their attacks by reading their strategic literature and following trends on their web forums and discussion boards,” Felter said.

» News source: Physorg

Cable operator Comcast is investigating how hardcore porno- graphy was broadcast during a popular cartoon program on the Disney Channel.

Customer Paul Dunleavy would also like to know. He was stunned Tuesday morning to find his 5-year-old son watching something other than “Handy Manny,” a cartoon about a bilingual Latino handyman and his talking tools. “It was two people doing their thing, it was full-on and it was disgusting,” the Middletown father of three told The New York Daily News for Wednesday newspapers. “I couldn’t believe it.”

Fred DeAndrea, a spokesman for Philadelphia-based Comcast, confirmed the programming error occurred around 9:30 a.m. Tuesday. He described it as an “isolated issue in a local New Jersey facility.”

“We automatically detected the issue and it was corrected promptly. We apologize to any customer who experienced an issue yesterday morning,” said DeAndrea, who said the mistake was made by his company, not Disney. DeAndrea declined to provide the duration of the pornography broadcast, how many homes it reached, how the mistake happened and whether anyone will be disciplined for the X-rated error.

“My son was extremely upset because he thought he’d done something wrong,” Dunleavy said, “and we’re hoping what he saw doesn’t become an issue for him.”